HISTORY OF WFK

Water for Kids is a charity set up in 1996 by 2 Environmental Health Practitioners (EHP’s) who visited Peru in 1995 as part of an EU sponsored scheme to help eradicate cholera after the outbreak of the early 1990’s. Their work was largely concerned with larger scale water treatment and distribution. It was clear to them that many people in the smaller, less formal, settlements had need of environmental health services in general and safe water in particular. They decided they should “do something to help” …. And so Water for Kids was born.

“Water for Kids” was chosen for several reasons. Firstly it is clearly a good description of what the charity does – provides water for kids! Clearly if the Kids have water, so too do all the members of the community. The emphasis on kids also suggests an investment in the future.

The charity today is still run by EHO’s and other public health practitioners and although it may be small and perfectly formed – it has big ambitions and we like to think that we do things just that little bit differently. From the start, the Charity adopted the approach that fund raising should be fun! Charity 5 a side football matches, South American drinks evenings, the sale of Christmas puddings and donations following not sending Christmas cards to colleagues have all helped raise the money to work on projects over the years.

In terms of its ethos the charity adopts what has become known as the “three legged stool”. The first leg, and most obvious element is humanitarian aid. Helping communities to develop safe water, sanitation and other public health services. This is achieved through working with the local communities and local professionals. The host community has to “want” the project.

The second leg is that of education. It is important that the community can sustain the improvement and make full use of any services developed. This involves education of the people, of their political leaders (both formal and informal) and an information exchange with the local professionals.

The third leg is the assistance in developing a professional association. By acting as an advocate of the people to government and as an interpreter of government legislation to the people can we hope successfully to spread the message of good environmental health practice and so accelerate the provision of much needed services.

The charity has completed projects in Peru, Tanzania and the Gambia - Zambia is the next area where we will be focusing its efforts. These projects range from installation of water to villages and schools in Tanzania and Peru, assisting in setting up degrees in Environmental Health in Tanzania and Zambia, health education schemes – the list is endless in fact. All the projects use evidence based interventions and are run using multi disciplinary teams from all fields of public health. Importantly for us – all our projects are sustainable and are run by the local community, wherever we can we use local labour and local materials.